The Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society, a group of Coptic scholars, has recently published its The Coptic New Testament Gospels, and made it available online. The reader can find it here. This is undoubtedly a great achievement, as it collects the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John written in Bohairic, Old Bohairic, Sahidic, and Lycopolitan in one volume, and puts against each, in a parallel column, the corresponding in other dialects, and in Greek and English. No Coptic language scholar, I suspect, will not find this volume, which is nearly 3000 pages long, of assistance. It will also benefit those who are interested in studying the English and Greek Gospels further.

It is good that the publishers used Western numerals rather than the Coptic ones, which I think cannot survive if we want to modernise Coptic, in this publication. The Coptic font is graceful, modern, and easy on the eye. The publication, however, has a few minor defects, such as the mistakes in the contents page at the beginning, some problems in the Coptic script, and the occasional failure to label the corresponding column rightly. Another defect is that the pages are not numbered. One hopes that these mistakes are amended in their new online edition; and one hopes that they will make it available online in other formats other than the PDF.

Let us hope also that the society will publish the rest of the New Testament and also the Old Testament. Such sources in Coptic have enormous influence on the progress of the study of Coptic.

The Gospel of St. Matthew occupies pages 10 to 900, and includes:

Bohairic – Greek

Bohairic – English (KJV)

Bohairic – Middle Egyptian

Bohairic – Sahidic

Greek – English (KJV)

Middle Egyptian – Greek

Middle Egyptian – English (KJV)

Sahidic – Greek

Sahidic – English (KJV)

Sahidic – Middle Egyptian

The Gospel of St. Mark occupies the pages from 901 to 1225, and includes: